I've worked with several over these over the years. I started with the ones
that were integrated with DBI, like DBIx::Abstract. I eventually found it
cumbersome that this approach left very little space for me to further tweak
the SQL.

I was then drawn to SQL::Abstract for the simplicity of it-- just generating
SQL and staying away from the database handle.

I had more flexibility, but eventually found SQL::Abstract's where clause
generation too abstract and inflexible-- some kinds of AND/OR nesting just
wasn't possible.

This brings me to my current recommendation, which is SQL::Interpolate. It
allows you to express parts of SQL in Perlish ways, with a result that is
natural looking and still open generating the rest of the SQL however you want.

No SQL statement has been too complex to use with SQL::Interpolate. Just to
bring things full circle, I use it through DBIx::Interpolate, which
simply passes the result on to DBI without getting the way further.

Still, it may not be a complete solution for what you are describing. Today
I ran into a problem that perhaps like what you described. I needed to take
a simple keyword field, split up the words, and generate some nested SQL to
regular expression matches against several fields.

For that I wrote SQL::KeywordSearch, which I hope to put on CPAN soon. It can either
generate $sql and @bind directly, or it can alternately generate a syntax that would
plug directly into a larger SQL::Interpolate query.

If there's interest, I could prioritize wrapping up SQL::KeywordSearch for
publishing. It's definitely a niche tool, but may at least be helpful as an
example.

Note: I think SQL::Interpolate 0.40 may be released soon, with some
improved syntax and docs.

When putting a smiley right before a closing parenthesis, do you:

Use two parentheses: (Like this: :) )
Use one parenthesis: (Like this: :)
Reverse direction of the smiley: (Like this: (: )
Use angle/square brackets instead of parentheses
Use C-style commenting to set the smiley off from the closing parenthesis
Make the smiley a dunce: (:>
I disapprove of emoticons
Other